![]() ![]() On a visit to her father’s family when she was 12, she went to pick up a toddler cousin. Melanie Mununggurr-Williams describes her father as “dark as night”, her mother “white as clay” and herself “caramel brown”. Others don’t always see you as you see yourself. Many contributors express pride in their European or other heritage as well, and claim other, “intersectional” identities, for example gay and lesbian, disabled, urban, feminist, vegan, Christian, atheist or even emo (“Aboriginemo”). They describe different paths to Aboriginal identity against the background of a nation that has yet to come fully to grips with a legacy of massacre, dispossession and persistent racism.Ĭontemporary Aboriginality is a richly complex proposition. Some had happy childhoods and others nightmarish ones, some grew up in their own families and others were stolen from them. ![]() Editor Anita Heiss has also included the stories of educators, journalists, military veterans, musicians, elders and students, many of whom are here published for the first time. ![]() Some contributors, such as footballer Adam Goodes and opera singer Deborah Cheetham, are well known, others less so. Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia is a mosaic, its more than 50 tiles – short personal essays with unique patterns, shapes, colours and textures – coming together to form a powerful portrait of resilience. ![]()
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